Economy

Stagnating Home Sales, Mortgage Rates & Job Growth But The Fed Only Has Eyes For Wall Street

Home sales are stagnating, mortgage rates are falling and job growth is now waning. What's not to love? Today's nonfarm payrolls report was a resounding thud with only 75,000 jobs added in May. Previous months were revised downward as well. Everywhere you look, cracks are beginning to appear in the carefully varnished edifice the Federal Reserve likes to call an economy. Maybe this is why there were 13 Federal Reserve officials hitting the airwaves this week to talk up their most favored metric of economic validation, the U.S. stock market. Earlier in the week we [...]

Denton County Employment Growth Still Solid, Why Are Home Sales Stagnating?

Denton County employment growth is still humming along. The Dallas-Fort Worth area continues to add jobs. Even with the job growth, home price gains in the DFW area continue to slow. This is confirmed in the recent numbers from Case-Shiller. Along with many professional PhD economists, the Case-Shiller committee seems to be puzzled that the housing market isn't firing on all cylinders given the recent plunge in mortgage interest rates. "Given the broader economic picture, housing should be doing better." Even Freddie Mac's deputy chief economist seems to be perplexed that the housing market isn't [...]

New Home Sales Jump 7 Percent In April But Momentum Is Fading

The Census Bureau reported new home sales in April which rose 7 percent compared to the same time a year ago. Sales (contract signings) for April posted at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 673,000 units. This was close to expectations, but interestingly the April figure represented a rather large 7 percent drop from revised March numbers. The sales numbers for the previous three months were revised higher. The median price of a new home rose in April to $342,200, while the average price of a new home contracted in April rose to $393700. This [...]

Existing Home Sales Decline For 14th Consecutive Month

The National Association of Realtors reported existing home sales for April which came in short of expectations. Existing sales in April posted at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.19 million units. This was 0.4 percent lower than March and 4.4 percent lower than April of 2018. According to NAR the median price of an existing home rose 3.6% in April to $267,300. The average price of an existing home in the U.S. rose 2.5% to $305,200. The inventory of existing homes for sale in April stood at 4.2 months, up 5% from a year [...]

Home Builder Confidence Not Confirmed By Housing Starts & Permits Data

This week the National Association of Home Builders reported improved confidence and business conditions among new home builders. With the big drop in mortgage interest rates, builders have been enjoying solid sales so far in 2019. NAHB chairman, Greg Ugalde, even said as much... “Builders are busy catching up after a wet winter and many characterize sales as solid, driven by improved demand and ongoing low overall supply...However, affordability challenges persist and remain a big impediment to stronger sales.” With mortgage rates just above 4 percent, the year-over-year interest rate comparisons are very favorable for [...]

Hoisington Quarterly Review: Parallels of Past Fed Mistakes

Hoisington Investment Management has released their latest Quarterly Review, and it's certainly worth a read if you want to understand the Federal Reserve's capitulation on policy normalization and the stagnating global economy. The global economic slowdown should really not be surprising considering the massive amounts of stimulus by global central banks which have resulted in massive amounts of debt and economic bifurcation. The problem with quantitative easing and all of the central bank intervention is that liquidity has not not been used for productive, organic growth. As the debt keeps piling up, the economic benefit [...]

Fed Says No Rate Hikes In 2019, Balance Sheet Drawdown Ending In September

The Jerome Powell cave is now a comical farce. Aside from using the word "patient" about 30 times in the March FOMC statement, Jerome Powell told us the Fed does not expect to hike interest rates at all in 2019. To top things off, the Fed balance sheet that was on autopilot at the end of last year will now end this September. In terms of the Fed's projections for the economy, growth was revised down and the unemployment rate was revised up slightly. "In light of global economic and financial developments and muted inflation [...]

Denton County Employment Growth Continues In 2019

The BLS February employment report was a big disappointment in terms of the number of jobs added, but Denton County continues to see solid employment growth. So far in 2019 the trend of more jobs in the area is still intact. The Dallas-Fort Worth area is still churning out jobs, and that is certainly welcome news considering the larger macroeconomic backdrop. For the time being, Denton and the DFW area are still churning out decent job numbers. The Texas economy added 15,400 seasonally adjusted nonfarm positions in January 2019, and Texas employers added 292,000 jobs [...]

High-Income Renter Households Growing Faster In DFW

High-income households choosing to rent in the DFW area are growing faster than owner-occupied households. This is the news from a RentCafe picture of wealthy renter households in top U.S. cities. According to RentCafe, households making more than $150,000 have seen a 175 percent increase in renter-household growth between 2007 and 2017, comprising roughly 1.35 million households. Shifts in buyer mentality, housing availability, changing demographics and other factors are at play. It doesn't help that Federal Reserve policy has grossly distorted the U.S. housing market in many ways, causing affordable inventory shortages in many markets. [...]

Caveman Powell Looking To Levitate Stock, Housing Bubbles

Yesterday the Federal Reserve yelped like a whipped puppy as Jerome Powell turned into the latest iteration of his market-dependent Bernanke/Yellen/Greenspan predecessors. If you remember, Mr. Powell was here in the DFW area back in November playing up the fabulous state of the U.S economy and the Fed's wonderful policies. At the time expectations were that the Fed would be raising the Federal Funds rate four more times this year with a balance sheet reduction schedule that was supposedly on "autopilot" to the tune of $50 billion per month rolling off. Flash forward one quarter [...]

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